Health and wellness

Using theatre to help rewrite stories of traumatic mental health hospital stays

Eden Middleton (center) at their 2024 theatre piece After There Will Be Flowers with collaborators Eve Beauchamp (left) and Lizzie Rajchel (Right).
Estimated Read Time:
3 minutes
Eden Middleton (center) at their 2024 theatre piece "After There Will Be Flowers" with collaborators Eve Beauchamp (left) and Lizzie Rajchel (Right). //PHOTO BY: ANNIE WILDE
Eden Middleton (center) at their 2024 theatre piece "After There Will Be Flowers" with collaborators Eve Beauchamp (left) and Lizzie Rajchel (Right). //PHOTO BY: ANNIE WILDE
Estimated Read Time:
3 minutes

Eden Middleton, a Master of Social Work student, is uncovering new ways to understand and transform how people tell the stories of their mental health hospital stays during crises. With a background in theatre and drama, Eden combines social work and the arts to explore how performance can help reclaim narratives often marked by trauma and loss of control.

As a recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) 2025 Canada Graduate Scholarships–Master’s (CGS-M) award, Eden’s research focuses on how people make sense of their time in hospital during mental health crises, and how theatre can help them tell and reshape those stories.

Eden, a Settler Canadian from Treaty 7, Moh’kins’tsis, grew up in a farming family and spent much of their childhood camping in the Rockies. Their passion for storytelling began with studying English and Drama at the University of Calgary, which led them to pursue a Master of Social Work at the University of Manitoba.

Eden’s interest in critical theory and arts-based research has been woven into their social work studies. They actively practice theatre as a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and theatre-maker, combining these creative skills with social work to explore how theatre can help people reclaim stories shaped by trauma and loss of control.

Theatre as a way to re-story trauma

Eden's research is personal. Navigating the mental health system themselves and with loved ones, Eden was struck by its complex nature. “I was deeply impacted by how that system can be both a deeply traumatizing and harmful place while simultaneously feeling like a lifeline and necessary resource during an incredibly vulnerable time.” 

This tension emerged in their fringe play, through which Eden began to understand how playwriting might unlock new ways of knowing and talking about difficult experiences. “I unpacked some of my own feelings about this through the writing and producing of my fringe show Date Night, and through that process I began to wonder about how playwriting might serve as a medium to unlock new ways of knowing about something that can be really difficult to talk about.”

I was deeply impacted by how [the mental health hospital] system can be both a deeply traumatizing and harmful place while simultaneously feeling like a lifeline and necessary resource during an incredibly vulnerable time.

Eden Middleton

Advice for new MSW students: Lean on community

Graduate school and research can be deeply challenging and personal work. For Eden, staying connected to loved ones, community, and joyful spaces outside academics has been essential to sustaining their journey. While self-care is often emphasized, they believe that caring for one another matters even more.

“We talk a lot about ‘self care’ and that’s important too, but really I think what matters even more is how we invest in and care for each other. Other people will remind you why you’re doing the work when you’re tired, buoy you when the work feels heavy, and celebrate you when you achieve those milestones you’ve worked so hard for.”

Having moved to Winnipeg for the program, Eden has been fortunate to find a supportive network in their supervisor, professors, cohort, and community back home. “Community is arguably part of what social workers do best." 

Their collective support has made the program manageable, and Eden encourages others to both rely on and be there for their communities.

 

A future where theatre and social work meet

Looking ahead, Eden hopes to connect their social work practice with their theatre work to create art that is co-created with communities, called for by communities, and transformative for them.

“Long term, my dream for the future is to intertwine my social work practice with my theatre practice and make theatre that is co-created with, called for by, and transformative for communities. Whether I get there through further PhD research, arts-based grants, or practice in community is still something I’m discerning.”

They are clear that their questions about suicidality, autonomy and care are far from resolved. “I also know that even at this stage in my research there are more questions than I can answer here about suicidality and autonomy – and that I remain deeply passionate about and committed to anti-carceral approaches to mental health care. I hope that this study makes some small contribution towards that goal.”
 

For those who want to follow the creative side of this work, connect with Eden’s artistic projects through Sunflower Collective Theatre: @sunflowercollectivetheatre